Print is dying. Print is dead. The publishing
business is toast. I can’t believe you don’t have a Kindle/iPad. Isn’t that bag
too heavy with a hardcover book in it?

Common refrains these
days, especially here in the tech innovation center of the world: the Bay Area. And,
wonderfully, the cool cats at McSweeney’s just keep on ignoring these
doomsayers, continuing to produce printed matter that rarely disappoints those
of us who still relish a reading experience that doesn’t require a charger. That
McSweeney’s does this is probably not news to most of you. I was surprised,
then, that their packaging design (with help from Jessica Hische) for Dave Eggers’ latest novel, A Hologram for the King, wasn’t fawned over more in the press,
design or otherwise.

Sure, the last thing these
guys need is more adoring publicity; and I’ve come to expect that each new
issue of their eponymous quarterly will pull off another feat of production
previously thought impossible. Yet upon receiving King, I was basically stunned—not
only by its beauty, but that I couldn’t begin to figure out how the hell they
actually fabricated the thing. I was loathe to even crack the spine for fear of
upending its sensual, aesthetic gestalt. It’s no actual hologram, but it comes pretty darn close.

The book’s packaging seems
to reference a bygone time (early 20th century? the Victorian age? early Gutenberg era? all three?) when books
were rarer specimens—sacred tomes of knowledge and wisdom. McSweeney’s has always been deft at shuttling this influence through the
wormhole of time and having it emerge as something that feels fresh and new today. Hologram’spackaging is no exception.

Finally, my jealousy would stop here if the writing failed to
live up to this finely rendered setup. But damn you, Dave Eggers, you’ve given
me yet another reason to be
(delightfully, of course) teal with envy.